3 Things to Keep in Mind When Buying a Camera

When you’re shopping for the perfect point-and-shoot, don’t be fooled by flashy specs. In some cases, all you’re paying for is a number. Here are three key features to reconsider.

DON’T MAX OUT ON MEGAPIXELS

Even blown up to poster size, a 5 MP shot and its 16 MP counterpart can’t be distinguished by the human eye. Not only that, higher megapixel counts can actually work against you; they fill up your memory card faster, leaving you with fewer chances to frame just the right family portrait. A 5 MP to 8 MP model should suit average shutterbugs.

FOCUS ON OPTICAL ZOOM

Sure, the phrase digital zoom sounds high-tech, but it’s the optical zoom—a measure of how far the lens physically moves toward the subject—that determines the quality of an image. Always favor a more robust optical zoom (at least 3X) if you hope to land, say, sharp wildlife shots from the safety of your Jeep.

INVEST IN ISO (WITHIN REASON)

Candlelit restaurants and shadowy cathedrals pose challenges for point-and-shoot cameras. To make sure yours will perform well in low light, look for an ISO (or light-sensitivity rating) that goes up to 1600. Note: While there’s no real downside of having a higher ISO, anything above 1600 will be superfluous for most folks.

This is a search menu. By typing in the search input you can query all of the articles available on the site and get instant and relevant results from the first keystroke. You can close the search menu by hitting the esc key once if the search input is empty. If you have made a search query hitting the esc key will clear the search input and search results. You can naviate the search the menu by hitting the tab key. Once you reach the last search result you will be naviated back to the clear button where you can clear the results make a new search query. If you reach the last suggested entry you will be navigated to the close button. To get back to the search input you have to hit shift + tab from either the clear or close button.

This is a button that clears the search input field and clears the search results by hitting the enter key. It is only available if a search query is made. You can get it to by forward tabbing from seach input or reverse tabbing from either the close button.

This is a button to close the search menu by hitting enter. You can navigate to it by tabbing forward from the search input.

This is a modal. You can exit by navigating to the close button and hitting enter, or hitting the esc key on your keyboard.